A LETTER FROM HOME
THE twins did not lose a moment. They edged through the crowd of girls,
dodged one or two laughing queries about their bathe, and, gaining the
staircase, fled up to their eyrie on the second floor. It was a little
room, with a big window, and a deep window-seat from which could be seen
the Bay and the big liners going up and down on their way backwards and
forwards across the world. The twins loved their window-seat, and
generally read their home-letters in it. But when they had read this one
they faced each other with eyes wide with dismay.
Father had gone straight to his point. That was like Father: he never
wasted time.
“MY DEAR LITTLE GIRLS,—
“I had meant to keep the news I have to give you until you came
home. But it occurs to me that it is better to let you know at
once.
“This has been a very bad year for me, as you know—not that you
have known everything, for Mother and I haven’t believed in
worrying you unnecessarily. You’re only kiddies, and we hoped
the bad times would pass. But they haven’t passed. The drought
has hit me very hard: I bought stock dear last year, and had to
sell them for next to nothing this year, because I hadn’t feed
for them. The stock I have still are as poor as crows, and I am
only keeping them alive by buying feed.
“I might have managed, however, but for an extra bit of bad
luck. Before things got very bad I lent an old friend a big sum
of money, expecting it to be paid back last month; and the long
and the short of it is, that he’s as hard hit as I am, and
hasn’t got it to pay back. Goodness knows if he’ll ever be able
to pay.
“So I’ve got to retrench, and I only wish I could do it all
myself, instead of involving Mother and you children. But that’s
just what I can’t do. We shall have to spend just as little
money as possible, and it will mean sending away the servants,
living very simply, and—I must take you two from school. I hate
to say it, but there’s no help for it. School costs me close on
£300 a year, and I can’t spare it. Besides, we’ll need your
help. I know you’ll save Mother in the house as much as you can,
and I think you should be able to teach Billy for a year or so.
That will save a governess. Possibly you’ll even give me a hand
on the place now and then, for I must do with as little outside
labour as I can. I expect I can reckon on you two when I need a
couple of extra hands, mustering.”
Jo gulped at this point. “Isn’t he a darling?” she said irrelevantly.
“Well, that’s all, and I’m afraid it’s an awful bombshell for
you, little chaps. It might have been better to wait to tell
you, but we have always faced things, and I thought you might
prefer to tell your mates yourselves, instead of having to write
explanations and good-byes. I’m writing to tell Miss Dampier. I
shall always be sorry that Mother’s old School had only a year’s
chance at you: the School that turned out Mother has a big thing
to its credit, and I was awfully glad to send you there. It is a
bitter disappointment to us both to have to take you away. I
wish I’d been able to manage better for you, kiddies.
“Your loving
“FATHER.”
“Oh, poor old chap!” said Jean. “Poor old chap!”
“Oh, isn’t it just rotten luck for him!” said Jo. “My word, Jean, we’ll
have to buck up and help him!”
Which remarks Miss Dampier would certainly have condemned on principle
as unladylike. But it is doubtful if Father would have found any fault.
“Mother simply isn’t fit to do much work, of course,” said Jean. “I
wonder what we can do, Jo. Do you suppose we can run things for her?”
“We’ll have a jolly hard try,” responded her twin. “After all, we ought
to be able to do a good bit. But—Jean—_Sarah_? Can you imagine Mother
without Sarah!”
Sarah had been part and parcel of the Weston household as long as the
twins could remember. There had never been a time when she had not ruled
unquestioned in the kitchen: tall, lean to the point of scragginess,
dour and short of speech, but with a heart of gold that belonged
entirely to her mistress. Housemaids came and went, after the manner of
housemaids, but Sarah was as the fixed stars. When sickness came she was
a tower of strength: nothing came amiss to her, and she would sit up all
night as tirelessly as she would work all day. Mrs. Weston was not
strong, and Sarah watched over her as a warlike hen watches a delicate
chick. It was unthinkable that Mother should be without her.
“But—but he said, ‘the servants.’ And there’s only Sarah and Amy.”
“Then he _must_ mean Sarah. Well, I guess it will take a team of
bullocks to drag her away!”
“Father wouldn’t keep her unless he could pay her,” Jean said. “My
goodness, how poor he must have got!”
“And I ate three ices this afternoon,” said Jo, contritely. “I wish I
hadn’t been such a greedy pig!”
“I did, too,” said Jean. “Why didn’t we get the letter a post earlier,
and we needn’t have spent all that money going to bathe!”
“Well, it’s gone now,” Jo said, mournfully. “Anyhow, I suppose it’s only
a drop in the bucket,” she sighed. “And I know he was hoping to be able
to get a motor for Mother next year. Now I suppose it’s doubtful if
we’ll even be able to keep the ponies.”
“The _ponies_?” Jean exclaimed. “You don’t mean to say you think they’ll
have to go? Why, Jo—I just couldn’t imagine you without Pilot!”
Jo blinked something away rapidly.
“I can’t quite imagine myself,” she said dolefully. “Or you without
Punch: it’s just as awful. But Father will simply _have_ to keep
Cruiser, Jean, ’cause he couldn’t work the place without him. That’s one
comfort, at any rate.”
“Unless his awful sense of duty makes him sell Cruiser and ride some old
crock,” Jean said. “It would be just like him to do that. But we’ll make
mother put her foot down about it—he won’t do it if he realizes how
we’d all hate to see him riding any horse except Cruiser.”
Jo nodded agreement.
“I wonder Mother didn’t write,” she said. “But I suppose she’s pretty
busy: and she’s just waiting to talk it all out when we get home. How do
you think we’ll get on at teaching Billy?”
Jean laughed.
“Oh, there will be a good deal of wool flying, now and then,” she said.
“Billy hasn’t been exactly all jam for the governesses—he won’t be keen
on obeying a mere pair of sisters. Perhaps it would have been as well if
we’d had a bit of experience as prefects first.” She hesitated, looking
out across the Bay at the sunset sky, against which the tall masts of a
wheat-ship showed black and slender. “And only this afternoon we were
scared blue at the very idea of becoming prefects!”
“Well, it needn’t scare us now,” Jo said, drily. “Oh, Jean, it’s going
to be hateful to leave!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Jean said. “And it’s hateful to have to tell every
one—so we’d better get it over as soon as we can. Let’s go and see Miss
Dampier, and then tell the girls.”
“All right,” Jo answered. “And if young Pearlie Alexander patronizes us
I’ll—I’ll—well, I’ll cease to be a perfect lady immediately!”
“You’ll have to begin by being one, first,” responded her twin. “And so
far, there hasn’t been any sign of it!” At which they managed to laugh,
and so took not uncheerful countenances to the study where Miss Dampier
sat reading the evening paper.
The Head was not at all cheery. She was to be bereft of so many of her
seniors that next year’s discipline presented something of a problem to
her; in addition, she was genuinely fond of the twins and of their
mother, and sympathized very heartily in their difficulties. She spoke
so kindly that Jo and Jean found her suddenly more human than they had
ever imagined that she could be, and talked freely to her of their
disappointment and their hopes and fears for the future. It came upon
both with a shock of horror, later on, that they had used slang
expressions several times, and that the Head had never seemed to notice
it!
She dismissed them at length, and they went slowly down the passage that
led to the senior girls’ studies. No preparation was done on the last
nights of term; already the holiday spirit had infected every one. From
the big schoolroom came the notes of a piano and a shouted chorus that
showed that the junior school was making merry. Several of the studies
they passed were in darkness, their doors ajar, their owners released
from the tedium of nightly toil. Helen Forester’s door was also ajar,
but light streamed from it, and the sound of many voices. The twins
looked in.
“Hullo, you two!” Nita Anderson greeted them. “We thought you had
succumbed to the mingled effects of bathing and ice-cream. And then an
awestruck junior reported that you had gone to Miss Dampier’s room.
Anything wrong?”
“Pretty awfully wrong—for us,” Jo said. “We’ve got to leave school!”
“Oh—_twinses_!” Helen Forester’s voice was a cry of distress. She
crossed the room quickly, putting an arm round each. “Not—not your
mother?”
“Oh, no. Mother’s all right,” Jean answered “It’s just horrid old
money.” Her face was flushed, but she kept her head up, looking bravely
at the concerned faces round her. “Father’s been awfully hard hit by the
drought—he kept things from us as long as ever he could, hoping they’d
pull round, and they haven’t. The stock haven’t anything to eat, and
he’s buying feed.”
She stopped, on the verge of further revelations. Suddenly she realized
that her father would not like her to speak of the friend to whom he had
lent money, and who had failed to return it.
“Got to cut down expenses.” Jo took up the story. “School-bills are
simply awful, of course, ’specially for people as fond of ices as we
are! House-expenses, too—we’re going to be cooks and bottlewashers, and
teach Billy in the intervals. Billy doesn’t respect us at all, so I
don’t know how _that’s_ going to answer. But we shan’t have a dull
moment.”
She stopped abruptly: so far she had rattled on, but she knew that her
voice would not carry her much farther. She was desperately afraid of
pity. But no one pitied them.
“Well, you are bricks!” Helen said, cheerily. “Such a chance: we always
talk, or think, about doing things for our people, but it generally ends
in their doing everything for us, in the same old way. Now you two are
really going to do things. You’ll have no end of fun.”
Her eyes sought Ellen Webster’s, saying silently, “Back me up!” Ellen
responded promptly.
“Woe is me!” she said, dismally. “Here are you off to Ceylon, Helen, and
all the others to frivol or be artistic, and who is going to support me?
I’d depended on the twinses. They were going to be kept under my eagle
eye and gradually hatched into the perfect prefect! Now they’ll be
fully-fledged housekeepers, and they’ll look down on me as a little
schoolgirl. It isn’t fair!”
This point of view had very naturally failed to present itself to Jean
and Jo. It had not occurred to them that any one could possibly feel
aggrieved at their going. Being only human, they found it cheering.
“But we don’t want to go a bit——” they began.
“Oh, you think you don’t. But wait until you’ve been home a few months,
running things, and see how you’d feel at the idea of coming back—back
to being put in your place by Smithy, and asked at short notice for the
subjunctive of a hideous irregular French verb, or made to walk in a
crocodile every day! Catch either of you giving up your independence,
once you’ve got it!”
“But we shan’t be independent—you seem to forget there’s Mother.”
“No—but I know you two!” said Ellen darkly. “I’ve been vice-captain for
a year, and I pity your hapless parents!”
“Yes, poor things!” Nita agreed. “Of course, they won’t be hapless for
ever—the drought will break, and stock will go up with a rush, and
they’ll become horribly rich——”
“This isn’t a story,” said Jo, regarding her sternly. “It’s real life.”
“Well, that’s what I’m talking about,” said Nita, much injured. “This is
the way it happens in the best circles. I wish you wouldn’t interrupt me
just as I get thrilling. Where was I?—oh, yes, horribly rich, and then
they’ll send the twinses to France and Switzerland, to finish off, and
they’ll be touring the world when they ought to be thinking of Junior
Public Exams. Their characters will be ruined, of course, but they’ll
have a gorgeous time!”
“Yes,” said Grace. “Then they’ll come home and find me painting for a
crust, in a torn overall, and they’ll charitably give me
three-and-elevenpence for my landscapes——”
“And sell them at a jumble sale!” put in Nita cruelly.
“Oh, I suppose so. That’s how great charitable reputations are worked
up. And they’ll look at me through lorgnettes, and say to themselves,
‘Dear me, and to think we were at school with that old thing! Hasn’t she
grown into a perfect haybag?’ Because, being purse-proud and ignorant,
they won’t know an artistic figure when they see it. And they’ll ask me
what has become of that queer, gawky Nita Anderson, and I shall reply,
‘Oh, quite dropped out of decent society—she’s taken to golf!’”
The soft drawl ceased abruptly, as the outraged Nita picked up the
artistic one in her muscular arms and deposited her on the sofa, where
she sat upon her, to keep her quiet, she explained. When the tumult
caused by this interlude had subsided—it had managed to include most of
those present—the twins were so weak with laughter that their troubles
seemed faint and far-off things. The cheery chaff went on—they were
somehow the centre of it, and they knew that every one else was trying
to “buck them up.” It was only decent to respond; “blues” were for
private consumption only, and must not be allowed to darken end-of-term
gatherings. So the twins became as cheerful as anyone, and put away
resolutely the spectres of drought and unpaid bills and household
worries. Later on, these would have their place; to-night was to-night,
and every one must be merry.
Bed-time came, and, one by one, the girls drifted away until there were
only Helen and Ellen Webster left. The twins were perched, cross-legged,
on each end of the Chesterfield couch, and Ellen looked at them, her
queer, elfin face, with its sharp features, settling into its accustomed
gravity.
“Well, I’ve ragged all the evening, but I’m going to be serious for two
minutes,” she said: “just long enough to say I’m horribly sorry you’re
going.”
“Thanks,” the twins said, nodding at her. “But we’d never have made
decent prefects, Ellen—truly.”
“I’ve my own opinion about that. But apart from being prefects, I’m
going to miss you. You don’t seem to consider I’ve a thought apart from
prefecting!”
“Well, we’re going to miss you. Oh, my goodness, how we’re going to miss
every one!” Jo breathed. “Even the irregular verbs and the crocodile.
We’ve had an awful lot of fun this year!”
“I don’t look forward to nearly so much as I’ve had,” sighed Ellen. “You
two cheerful lunatics will be gone, for one thing: so will Helen, whom I
mustn’t call a lunatic, because she’s Captain, but who is very cheerful.
And nearly all the old set will be gone, and I’ll be left like a pelican
on the housetop. But it’s worst of all for you, because you’ll have
worries as well. I just wanted you to know I was sorry.”
“You’ve all been jolly good,” Jean said. “I don’t suppose we realize the
worries yet. Of course we’ve never been rich, but we’ve had all we
wanted. That’s one way of being rich, I expect. But it’s going to be
horrid to think Father and Mother have worries we can’t help.”
“But you _are_ going to help. Look at all you’ll be saving them.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t seem like making money. If only we could keep
Sarah for Mother—’cause Sarah understands all about her, and she’s as
good as a nurse if she’s ill. I wouldn’t care how hard we worked, if
only we could keep Sarah. But it’s no use wishing. No one is much good
when they aren’t even sixteen yet,” finished Jo, with an utter lack of
grammar and a woe-begone expression.
“No—as far as making money goes, you can’t expect to be marvels,” Ellen
agreed. “But do remember that you’re helping when you save, because that
will help you yourselves—ever so much.”
“You’re going to help in dozens of ways, and most of all by bucking them
up,” said Helen firmly. “No worries can be half so bad with you cheery
twinses about. You’ve just got to go home and be Knights of the Cheerful
Countenance, and that’s something a long way better than money. And
don’t forget that bad times don’t last for ever—especially if you make
up your mind not to regard them as bad. Now, just uncurl yourselves from
those sofa-ends and go off to bed, or Miss Dampier will ask if I’ve
already ceased to be Captain!”
[Illustration: “The twins loved their window-seat, and generally read
their home-letters in it.”
_The Twins of Emu Plains_] [_Page 43_]